


Meanwhile, Just Off-Screen...

by Ducarion



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Apathetic Naruto Uzumaki, Crack, Gen, Guest Appearance by Kakashi's Guilt Complex, Haruno Sakura is So Done, Hokage Uzumaki Naruto, Humor, Stealth Boruto Crossover, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26653321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ducarion/pseuds/Ducarion
Summary: Naruto time travels back to the Fourth Shinobi War. None of the explanations for this are good for Sakura’s peace of mind, but perhaps he can help defeat Madara though…Naruto sees no reason as to why he should fight. This was an accident, and everything in his past worked out fine.Sakura disagrees.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 10
Kudos: 70
Collections: r/NarutoFanfiction Gift Exchange





	Meanwhile, Just Off-Screen...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Berix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Berix/gifts).



Kakashi and Sakura were resigned to watching Naruto and Sasuke’s battle with Uchiha Madara from afar. Both of them were ready for combat, but as time dragged on even Sakura could not summon up the enthusiasm to keep cheering her teammates on. Conversation between Kakashi and Sakura had been exhausted several tense minutes before. Even the awesomely destructive spectacle of the Nine-Tail’s chakra could become - not boring, obviously - common when it was being used in such quantities. 

Sakura might be willing to acknowledge, to herself at least, that some of her adrenaline had been replace with bitterness. She had fallen behind her teammates yet again, and all her efforts to match Sasuke had apparently earned her the chance to stand on the side-lines and watch pretty lights through the constantly-churning dust. Sakura decided not to speculate about Kakashi’s motivations. It was either professionalism or guilt.  
  
Regardless of their motivations, they kept their attention on the fight. Neither of them could bear to look away. One moment in combat could change everything, and with such high stakes neither of them was willing to move away. 

Sakura refused to miss seeing Sasuke’s moment of triumph, this time.

“I look pretty cool, don’t I?” Naruto asked.

What.

Naruto had asked that question so casually that it took Sakura a moment to realise that he should not be standing at her side.

By the time she had registered her presence, Kakashi had already hauled her back, placing himself between Sakura and the newcomer.

Sweet, but pointless. After everything that had happened today, Sakura had no time to feel fear. 

“Naruto!” Sakura demanded, ripping her arm pointedly out of Kakashi’s grasp. “Sensei, since they’re still fighting, it’s obviously a clone. But what are you doing all the way over here?”

“Talking to you?”

“Sakura, we don’t have any way of telling whether this is really Naruto or not,” Kakashi said, refusing to move even when Sakura pushed him.

Sakura pointedly ignored her old sensei’s attempts to protect her. She channelled a little chakra to her arms and shoved him aside, because the last thing that she needed to fear right now was Naruto. “You should be over there,” she accused the clone. Another flash of bjiuu chakra illuminated the entire field, throwing her teammate into sharp relief. She squinted up at him. “Did you henge yourself?” she asked uncertainly. She had been distracted by his presence before, and hadn’t had time to notice more than the distinctive blond hair, appalling orange tones, and whisker marked cheeks, but Naruto was too tall, and the clothes that he was wearing were wrong. Too orange, it was giving her unpleasant flashbacks “If you sent a henged clone over here just to prank us,” she warned, “I’m going to be so mad, Naruto.”

“No?” the too-tall Naruto said.

“Not a henge,” Kakashi agreed. He did not relax, although he did at least resume his position at Sakura’s side rather than push his way in front of her again. 

“Are you sure, Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura asked. 

Naruto rolled his eyes. “Relax, Sakura-chan. I’m pretty sure I time-travelled.”

Once again, Sakura had no words for the emotions that she was feeling. She was certain that, in some forgotten corner of her mind, Inner was screaming for her. “I see,” Sakura lied. “That is the obvious explanation for you being here, and you don’t need to give me any other explanation.”

“Unless this is actually a genjutsu, I guess,” Naruto continued, patently oblivious as always. Sakura had never considered his idiocy to be reassuring before, but at least this way she could be more assured that it really was him. Naruto shaded his eyes with his hand and looked towards his current-self’s battle with Madara. “It’s weird being here,” he said, as if this sort of event happened as a matter of course. Sakura might have believed that it did, in his future, except she knew Naruto now, and suspected that he would have in the same manner too. “I can’t exactly check that the normal way.”

“Why not?” Kakashi asked. “Because of Madara?” 

“Sure, that too.”

Kakashi’s nose wrinkled under his mask in displeasure.

This older Naruto made no sense, but he didn’t seem hostile. “This isn’t a genjutsu,” Sakura said, “And you’re fighting over there with Sasuke- your younger self anyway.” She paused, uncertain for a moment as she ran through everything she knew about her teammate. Something wasn’t adding up. “Why are you even over here? Aren’t you going to help him?”

“No.”

“You aren’t going to help?!”

Naruto shrugged. “We won anyway. I kinda want to see what I look like when I’m fighting for real. I’m always too busy at the time.”

There were a lot of emotions that Sakura would be feeling if she had the time for it. They were going to win, so her shishou’s sacrifice had not been for nothing. No-one was going to die, or get seriously injured, unless Naruto had entirely changed in the next ten years. Both of these things were undoubtedly good. Perfect, in fact, and if she had been asked what she wanted from a time traveller ten minutes ago, that information would have been all she asked for. It had begun to look like a hopeless prospect.

But if their future was so fine and dandy, according to Naruto, Sakura only had one question. A good one. “If it’s so good, then why are you here?” she demanded.

Only _now_ did Naruto scratch the back of his neck and look apologetic. “Well, I was working and opened this scroll-” His attention flickered back to the fight. “Hey, that was pretty cool- hey!” He dodged Sakura’s instinctive punch with surprising grace, and she clenched her fist and glared at him. “I was just saying, I was working-”

“Where?” Sakura demanded.

“At my desk. Obviously.”

Sakura felt the weight of Kakashi’s glare join her own, perhaps because of the alien intensity of it being executed with two eyes rather than one.

Naruto groaned. “I was working in the Hokage Tower,” he admitted, “because, y’know, that’s where I work. I’m the Hokage. And I got this mission report in, and there was a seal attached. They found it, wanted it checked over. 

“I’m a Uzumaki, y’know? Everyone keeps saying I should be good at seals and stuff, but Ero-sennin said I wasn’t allowed to try anymore after the first time and you- older you, Kakashi-sensei- agreed.

“So I decided to just take a little look at it, because it was more interesting than the paperwork I was supposed to do, and now I’m here.” Naruto spread his hands theatrically, and wilted a little at their reactions. 

Sakura let her Killing Intent spill out a little more. “You didn’t come to help anyone. You came here- to the most devastating battle in human history- because you _got bored doing paperwork_?”

Kakashi-sensei had followed Naruto’s rant too, and was clearly equally unimpressed. “You activated an unknown seal yourself, without any training,” he emphasised, “because Jiraiya-sama and I told you not to.”

“Yeah. I mean, I guess. But I wouldn’t have done it normally! I’m not stupid!”

“That's a matter of opinion,” Sakura muttered. Had she really expected him to grow out of it? By now, it seemed clear that people’s personalities were set much earlier in life than her parents had believed. No-one’s efforts to change Sasuke had succeeded, not even Naruto’s, and Sakura herself was too stubborn to be moved.

Kakashi seemed more incensed than this admission warranted, however. He took a step forwards threateningly. “And how are you planning to get back to the people that are relying on you, Hokage-sama?” Kakashi demanded.

“It’ll be fine,” Naruto said. “I mean I probably shouldn’t die here or anything, but everything turned out fine, right?”

Sakura blinked, surprised at the sheer arrogance in that statement. Perhaps people could change, but if Naruto had, it was not for the better. “Excuse me?” she demanded. “That’s not good enough, Naruto!” Never mind that his younger counterpart was apparently guaranteed to win the battle without his intervention, Sakura felt a rush of furious sympathy for her older counterpart, who would be abandoned again so easily by a Hokage who was so apathetic. She raised her fists. “Get over there, right now!”

“I mean it,” Naruto said, holding his hands up - a really annoying gesture of submission. “I really shouldn’t die here. It’s a terrible idea. That would be bad, right, for all those people relying on me and stuff- Sakura, don’t hit me!”

Sakura grabbed Naruto by the hair, pulling him down to her height. 

Annoyingly, he did not resist, just flailed his arms around. “Kakashi-sensei,” he whined.

“Mah, we mustn’t kill him, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi said, grey eye bright with rage. “We need to save our energy in case Naruto-kun needs us. And to work out how to send him back.”

“Of course, sensei,” Sakura cooed. “I’ll just pacify him a bit.”

“Good girl.”

“You really don’t need to send me back,” Naruto said desperately. “You’ve got the wrong idea! Really, really, don’t do this! I’m just a shadow clone!”

Sakura registered his statement a second too late, and was unable to stop herself from landing a really satisfying punch to his chin. It had been angled to knock the time traveller into the fight so that he would have no choice but to compete, but instead he exploded into a cloud of bitter-smelling smoke.

There was a flash of uncontrolled vitriolic bijuu chakra, that threw up a shockwave of dust. and the rhythm of the fight that had been going on in the background of their entire conversation paused, as if one of the combatants had abruptly had over a decade of memories dumped into his head at a critical moment.

Sakura didn’t even have the energy to spit out the dust in her mouth, turning to look at Kakashi’s dim silhouette with horror that would surely be matched on her sensei’s face. Had her punch inadvertently changed the future caused Naruto to die?

Sakura was allowed almost ten seconds of panicking before another voice cut through the unnaturally silent air, loud and annoying and- may the kami forbid- _familiar_.

“Hey guys,” their Naruto yelled. “Everything’s good! There’s an old lady alien who lives on the moon! She’s gonna try and eat everyone, but, this is important, all we have to do is stay off the ground and fly up there and- and Sasuke comes back, and-” A long pause, during which time Inner surely fell to her knees and wept in relief (Sakura definitely didn’t have the time to do that, either). “I have kids?! Everyone has kids? Teme, what is going on?”

Sakura could not see Sasuke's expression, but his reaction to Naruto's announcement made his feelings clear enough:

“Shut up, Naruto!”

**Author's Note:**

> Q: Clone memory transfer is a mess in canon, but what could make it messier than canon? 
> 
> A: Time travel. Everything is made delightfully worse with time travel.


End file.
